Where's Grayleen?

Kayaking Abel Tasman Park has to rank as one of my favorite travel experiences so far. And while the three days of endless golden sand beaches and water-carved rocks were pretty awesome, there’s really one simple reason for its very high ranking: fur seals!! We came at the perfect time of year, when the adorable seal pups were at their most playful and curious. We came across hundreds of them nursing, splashing around, and generally just being fur seal pups.

They were particularly curious about us, and became braver and braver. First they just did quick swim-by looks. Then they would stop to poke a head up before darting off. Then they came over to sniff the hands we put in the water. Then they started brushing up against our hands to get pets. Finally, four times we even had one climb up on our kayak for a really close look. Particularly adorably, one that we took for a ride on the kayak (we named him “Sam”) poked his little face in the water several times to look at his friends. I imagined him being like “Look at me! I’m on a boat!” No doubt he was the cool kid in the seal colony that day.

He's so cute!! I'm bringing him home with me!

A truly incredible experience.

As a side note: This would not have been possible had we not found Golden Bay Kayaks. Of the six to ten kayak outfitters that serve Abel Tasman Park, Golden Bay Kayaks is the only one that allows you to kayak in the northern half of the park. The northern part of the park was by far our favorite part and was where we spent several hours hanging out with the fur seal pups. Since all of the other kayaks are restricted to the southern part and the tour boats stick to the southern part as well, we had the water and the seals to ourselves. Indescribably beautiful and amazing. While there is also a seal colony on Tonga Island further south, it is constantly surrounded by boats and guided kayak tours– cool to see the seals there as well but just incomparable.

More pics from Abel Tasman here.

While doing the Tongariro Northern Circuit, some Brits we met tipped us off to their favorite South Island track: the Queen Charlotte Track on the northern tip (out of Picton). Why their favorite?

1. Backpack delivery: You only have to carry a day pack and the rest of your stuff will be delivered to the campsite or lodging of your choice each day at no extra charge (included with the boat ride to the trailhead). It’ll be waiting for you by the time you arrive.
2. Beers at the end of the day: Since much of the track goes over private land, there are a bunch of lodges and inns where you can buy food and/or drink. If you wanted to, you could buy all of your food along the way and stay at these lodges for a very cushy hiking experience.
3. No crowds. Since it is has not been designated one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks”, it is far less crowded than many other tracks.
4. Beautiful views. As you hike on the ridge lines, you overlook not one, but two beautiful sounds.

Queen Charlotte Sound. Our photos don't do it justice.

Needless to say, we were sold! We spent three long days of hiking (27km, 24km, 21km) taking in the beautiful views and the lush forest. To top it off, along the way we discovered the origin of the red-with-white-dots Super Mario mushroom! Bonus!

Eat to get bigger

A few more photos from the Queen Charlotte track here.

As a little girl, I always dreamed of swimming with dolphins. I fell in love with them at Marineland in Florida. I told anyone who would listen that they were my favorite animal. I wrote a long report on dolphins in 6^th grade. But then as an adult, I decided not to do the swimming with the dolphins programs you find at hotels and water parks because of ethical concerns about dolphins in captivity and the dolphin-capture industry¹.

So when we came across the Kaikora Dolphin Encounter program, which takes you out in a boat to swim with wild dolphins, I decided to make my childhood dream come true. Dolphin Encounter’s philosophy is that the dolphins are not there to entertain you; you are there to entertain the dolphins. And if you don’t succeed, the dolphins won’t stick around. Seemed fair to me!

Dolphins, dolphins, everywhere!

How do you entertain dolphins? By making funny noises, diving underwater, swimming in circles, and trying to make eye contact. I can tell you, watching us out there would be pretty entertaining to humans as well! The boat would drive us out to where there were literally hundreds of dusky dolphins swimming, jumping, and doing flips. We wetsuit-clad swimmers would sit at the edge of the back of the boat, and upon the sounding of a horn, would all jump in and proceed to swim in circles while making funny noises. Since the dolphin pod moved around a lot, after ten minutes or so the horn would sound again to tell swimmers to get back on the boat to reposition. Repeat. Pretty funny.

Showing off

Swimming with the dolphins was amazing. Just being surrounded by so many of these beautiful and wild creatures was unbelievable. The most I’d previously seen before in one place might have been twenty. Especially once I took off the hood and vest of my too-buoyant wetsuit and could dive underwater (ahh! brain freeze!), I could see dolphins everywhere, swimming to my left, right, under, and over me. A few times I circled around with a curious dolphin. But I couldn’t hold any one dolphin’s attention for long, and I can’t blame them: we must have all appeared ridiculously slow and clumsy in the water. I mean, how long can a snail hold your attention?

More photos of the dolphins and Kaikora here.

1I highly recommend The Cove (winner of Academy Award for best feature documentary) on this topic.

Brochure-worthy photo of us checking out cave-living glow worms

These amazing “glow worms” look just like stars on the roof of the caves in which they dwell.   They are actually larvae of a gnat and attract flying insects with their lights and then trap them in saliva-covered threads dangling from the ceiling.  Yum!

More photos from our caving and abseiling experience are here.  (Thanks Denise and Nick for the awesome tour guide recommendation!)

Meet Bunny, our campervan! No, we did not name her ourselves, she came with the name.

Bunny in one of our favorite "freedom" (i.e. side of road) camp sites

We’ve received several requests now to see this campervan of ours and to get a better idea of how exactly we’re living these days. Here ya go:

By day, we have a living room (note the beach view)

At mealtimes, we set up a card table and cook deliciousness via camp stove

By night, we transform the larger bench into a double bed

We’re really enjoying the campervan life. We’re free to move about at a whim and if we ever get bored of driving, we simply pull over in a rest area and hang out. More days than not, we have a great sunset and/or sunrise over the ocean. And we’re cooking something like 80% of our meals, a real budget saver in a country where restaurants are very expensive (and it’s been fun too!).